How They Did It: Shifting Time in H is for Hawk

By Allison K Williams

This is the first of our new series, How They Did It, a look at craft techniques in published work. Has a particular passage inspired your own writing craft? Share your close read with us. The Brevity Blog guidelines here.

Writing the past, in fiction or memoir, challenges our ability to shift time smoothly. We can use dingbats to separate sections, start a new chapter or take a blank line.

But nesting past and present, onion-ing layers of meaning so that juxta...